Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. Locomotives of this type are also referred to as "eight coupled".
Other equivalent classifications are:
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Examples of the type were constructed both as tender locomotives and tank locomotives. The earliest locomotives were built for mainline haulage, particularly for freight, but later the configuration was also often used for large switcher (UK: shunter) types. The wheel arrangement provided a powerful layout with all weight as adhesive weight and thus tractive effort and factor of adhesion were maximised. The layout was generally too large for smaller and lighter railways, where the more popular 0-6-0 wheel arrangement would often be found performing similar duties.
This configuration appeared early in locomotive development in the USA during the mid 1840s.
Ross Winans developed a series of 0-8-0 types for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad starting in 1844. The type became popular in the USA where it was more commonly constructed as a tender locomotive and saw extensive use as a heavy switcher and freight engine.
The USRA 0-8-0 was a USRA standard class, designed by the United States Railroad Administration during World War I. This was the standard heavy switcher of the USRA types, of which 175 examples were built by ALCO, Baldwin and Lima for many different railroads in the USA. After the dissolution of the USRA in 1920, an additional 1,200 examples of the USRA 0-8-0 were built.
Two 0-8-0 locomotives were delivered from Andre Koechlin & Cie in Mulhouse to the Austrian Southern Railway in 1862. They were later sent to Italy and worked over the Apennines between Bologna and Pistoja.[1]
Two examples of 0-8-0 tank locomotives were built by Archibald Sturrock of the United Kingdom’s Great Northern Railway in 1866, but the design was not perpetuated. The tender locomotive version was introduced on the Barry Railway Company in 1889 to haul coal trains.
Francis Webb of the London and North Western Railway built 282 examples of a compound 0-8-0 between 1892 and 1904. A further 290 examples of a simple expansion version were built by his successor between 1910 and 1922.
After 1901 numerous classes of British 0-8-0 were introduced in Britain.
In Russia the 0-8-0 class locomotives were represented by the various O-class (Osnovnoj- mainline) freight locomotives. They were built from the end of the 19th century until the 1920s. They were commonly called the "Sheep" (Ovechka) and were the most common freight locomotives in Tsarist Russia. Some are still preserved in working order.
On the South African Railways (SAR), shunting was traditionally performed by downgraded main line locomotives. When purpose built shunting locomotives were eventually introduced in 1929, the SAR preferred to adhere to the American practice of using tender locomotives for shunting, rather than the European practice of using tank locomotives. Three classes of 0-8-0 shunting steam locomotives were introduced between 1929 and 1952.[2]
In 1929 fourteen Class S locomotives were placed in service. They were built by Henschel and Son in Germany, designed to SAR specifications. The top sides of the tender’s coal bunker were set inwards and the water tank top was rounded to improve the crew’s rearward vision. When they were first introduced, their boiler pressure was set at 216 pounds per square inch (1,490 kilopascals), giving a tractive effort of 45,400 pounds-force (201.9 kilonewtons), but since they tended to be slippery, the operating boiler pressure was reduced to 170 pounds per square inch (1,170 kilopascals), resulting in a corresponding reduction in tractive effort to 35,890 pounds-force (159.6 kilonewtons) at 75% boiler pressure.[3][4][5]
The second type, the Class S1, was designed by Dr. M.M. Loubser, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the SAR from 1939 to 1949. Twelve of these locomotives, a heavier version of the Class S, were built at the Salt River workshops in Cape Town with the first being delivered in October 1947. A further twenty-five Class S1 locomotives were ordered from the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow in 1952 and delivered in 1953 and 1954. The Class S1 was noted for its efficiency and economy and could cope with block loads of up to 2,000 long tons (2,000 tonnes).[2][4][5][6]
To meet the need for shunting locomotives with a light axle load for harbour work, these were followed in 1952 and 1953 by one hundred Class S2 locomotives, built by Friedrich Krupp AG of Essen in Germany. In order to adhere to the specified weight limit, the Class S2 was built with a small boiler, with the result that it had the appearance of a Cape gauge locomotive with a Narrow gauge boiler, particularly when viewed from the front. Also to reduce the axle load, it had Vanderbilt type tenders that rode on Buckeye three axle bogies.[2][4][5][7]
The narrow gauge Heeresfeldbahn class HF 160 D were developed for wartime service during the Second World War. The engines were also classified as Kriegsdampflokomotive 11 (military steam locomotive 11) or KDL 11. After the war the locomotives were put to use for civilian purposes.